Oh my heavens, there's no comparison. I use 1/2 cup ghirardelli chocolate chips to 1 cup milk with a dash of vanilla, salt, sometimes cinnamon or chipotle. Just heat the milk to almost boiling, remove from the heat and stir in the chocolate. My poppy greatly misses my real hot chocolate every year after he & my mom return home from my house at Christmas!

While I do not know whether or not this violates the 'code of conduct' for participation in this forum, I find the on-going attempt to promote Safeway stores, by an employee not just irritating, but an act bordering on being offensive. I will trust the site co-ordinators, to regulate all such traffic, and if this kind of posting is deemed acceptable by other users, I will definitely respect that. But I for one find this kind of behaviour duplicitous and objectionable.

Nima, you're not alone. And yes, I have a feeling it violates forum rules, but I'll defer to Clotilde and the other monitors.

I should make it clear that I have absolutely no problem with an employee of Safeway (or any other business!) joining the forums as a private individual and adding their own voice to the discussion at hand (as all the rest of us do). But coming aboard with the fairly obvious motive of promoting Safeway products - that strikes me as not quite in the spirit of C&Z!

I apologize if i show too much enthusiasm for who I work for. I really do enjoy the holidays as and wanted to share some holiday recipes from my companies site. I don't mean to barge it upon anyone or disrespect rules. Thank you for the variety of ideas here.

Ladies...are you using whole milk, skim, or reduced fat when you prepare HC? Does it make a big difference in taste?

GiveMeSweets - you assume we are all ladies. I don't mind being called a lady but many women prefer to be called women. What about all the men on this forum. You assume they don't drink hot chocolate._________________Barbara

I apologize if i show too much enthusiasm for who I work for. I really do enjoy the holidays as and wanted to share some holiday recipes from my companies site. I don't mean to barge it upon anyone or disrespect rules. Thank you for the variety of ideas here.

I can't speak for the rest of the forum but I think that your forum posts were just bordering on being a little too promotional for me. And correct me if I am wrong but I don't think you ever mentioned that you were actually working for Safeways in any of them. The only reason I found out that you were working for Safeway was because you had written it in your profile (which was at least some attempt on your part to be upfront about it).

I also believe that you or someone else from Safeway is doing the same thing on another forum which leads me to believe that you and maybe others in the organisation are being paid to do this.

Now I am not here to pick on you. It really isn't my place as this isn't my forum but you have to understand that forums are very much like families. Although I haven't been on this forum for very long and can't even consider myself to be part of the family yet, I understand that coming in and blatantly promoting my website wouldn't be the thing to do.

The forum owners here are kind enough to let us promote our sites by adding a link to our website in our signature file and that has to be enough for anyone on a forum._________________Paula (and sometimes Wanda) from Only Cookware
http://www.only-cookware.com/

I'm sorry "women" and "men". I didn't mean to discriminate. Ha! I was mostly aiming it to those who had recently posted in this forum who were mostly women. :-p I see a James and David now...sorry James and David.

So men and women...do you think it matters if you use whole milk compared to reduced fat or even skim?

do you think it matters if you use whole milk compared to reduced fat or even skim? :P

Yes, it does. Whole milk has more body then reduced fat and skim milks. The resulting hot chocolate will taste creamier & richer. Using some chocolate along with cocoa might offset the thinness of the reduced fat milk a little bit.